Opening the Book has worked with many different architects, developers and main contractors. We welcome early involvement in building plans and can play a helpful role in discussions at an early stage. We are always sympathetic to the architect’s vision and seek to make the interior work with the building style not against it. At the same time, we understand the operational needs of running a library service and can help to ensure the library functions well for both customers and staff.
- At Leam Lane in Gateshead our discussions with the architects changed the line of the entrance to improve access after the volume of library use was fully understood.
- At Downham Lifestyle Centre in Lewisham, we worked with different teams of architects appointed to the PFI project to win more space for the library on the ground floor by presenting practical and attractive designs for the shared space
- At Stratford Library we remodelled part of the ground floor within the award-winning design and fiction issues went up 21%.
- At Swansea, Simon Brind managed every aspect of a complex £500k contract with Carillion who were contracted to deliver the whole Civic Centre of which the library was part. Opening the Book delivered on time and on budget, working within the tight constraints required in a project of this scale.
- We have designed successful interiors for varied historic buildings – for example, Victorian Twickenham, Art Deco Bolton Central and the listed Barbican Library originally opened in 1982.
- At Oxford, Opening the Book was contracted by Capital Shopping Centres to work with Robert Palmer, the architect from BDP, and Oxfordshire County Council to evaluate proposals for the Central Library within the redevelopment of the Westgate Centre.